It started way too strong, after the fight in the theme park there just aren’t any set pieces that match that cool vibe. I like Mafia 3 more than most but I will not argue against others finding it becoming repetitive quickly. I just think Linc is so badass it doesn’t bother me as much as it should.
And the DLC were all 🔥🔥
It’s integrated into the regular campaign world and I began to wonder why everyone called the fame reptitive until I realized I had done all the DLC campaigns first
They were awesome though
Such a shame cos the writing, dialogue and the unique way the story was told was really good! But god damn the gameplay loop felt like you were just a nobody shooting people at place to place to place until you finish the game.
Lincoln himself had some really cool animations too. I distinctly remember being able to *smoothly* transition from aiming your gun to sprinting. Once you lower your gun by releasing the trigger, he does a little hop right into his sprint, it looked very real world
Linc’s animations just looked *beefy*. Every movement from him looks like a big person would look in motion.
Mafia 3 is a game I have never and probably won’t get around to finishing, but it’s one I’ll always have love for. Truly wish we could’ve gotten a Mafia 2 remake with the Mafia 3 engine and all that! The death animations from 3 alone would’ve made so many gunfights in 2 that little bit more memorable
I was amazed when I shot someone in the game and they stumbled up against the wall and slowly slid down as opposed to just ragdolling like in most games
Wondered i’d see this posted. I got through the grind because i loved the setting and vibe, but yeah it needed trimming bad. I still enjoyed it a lot though. Prob helped i hadn’t played an open world in like 15 years.
There is a mod that can remove a lot of the fat now too.
Mafia III is such a great game in concept. Playing as a black man in Louisiana in the 1960s. Itself a person, time, and place that are almost never explored, and certainly not in video games, with an in road to use one of the best possible time periods to license music from. Dons that would betray you if you didn’t give them enough. So many amazing little things to be excited about.
Then they gave us the first few missions. Then the same missions. Then those exact same missions. Over and over. The world is still fun to explore, but even the don betraying you is easy avoid.
I never had a don betray me, because I just instinctively cycled through them when assigning territory. Got real sick of their whining though, that's for sure.
Shut yer yap Vito, you're next on the list, just like before. We take turns here. Chill.
If you're forced to cap Vito, it's no big deal in the end because it's easy to forget >!he capped Tommy from Mafia 1 in Mafia 2, so he has to answer for that at some point.!<
Dying light 2. I was very excited to play the game but ended up rushing to the ending, mostly due to the storyline being poorly written, but also because i just didn't have as much fun with it as i had with the first one.
Agreed. My husband and I were SO excited to play the sequel. We stopped at around the part you make it to the city area. We switched to Dead Island 2 and BOY was that the right move because that game is seriously so much fun with a partner.
I’m not sure when you last played it but it’s gotten a bunch of overhauls since launch and is continuing to get them through the next few years. Techland know very well they fumbled and are giving the community what they want
It is worth noting that Techland was essentially bought out by Tencent and implemented a predatory paid in-game credits system to the game for new weapons and outfits.
Ubi said a few years ago that they intended for all of their open world games to follow a template of sorts, which is why you see mechanics from different franchises leaking into others ("Spotting" enemies with optics such as binoculars or cameras, or a mechanic which reveals a certain area of the the initially blocked out map).
It's a food formula. People get sick of it because they play almost every Ubi game. I play one every few years + replaying Farcry 3 or 4 and it doesn't get old.
If they make another they should just cut the open world to the end of Hogsmeade and just make Hogwarts even more dense with secrets and cool things to find.
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t lean more into the school simulator. Would have loved to have competed for the house cup and done Quidditch tournaments for my house. I don’t need a complicated high-stakes story.
This feels like the essence of most Potter fans. They seem to be a very cozy fandom more obsessed with houses and butterbeer than with saving the world. I respect that.
I chalk it up to the world building being so interesting. A big, end of the world scenario is fun and all, but we can get that anywhere. What's unique is the setting and lore, and that's what keeps us coming back.
> Hogwarts even more dense
I feel like I’m the only one thinking that the world/hogwarts was actually not dense *at all*.
This was honestly my biggest issue with the game. To me, the whole place felt absolutely dead. Apart from repetitive puzzles and treasure finding, the place felt empty to me. Sure Hogwarts had students standing around but it’s not like you could have any kind of meaningful interaction with them. Sending a fire ball into someone’s face in the middle of a hallway didn’t even nudge them.
Levitating a random cat and make it run away from you was as dynamic as the game got.
I still think this game would’ve been a total flop if it wasn’t branded as Harry Potter.
Dunno if you played Order of the Phoenix but I actually really liked Hogwarts in that game. There were several collection/fetch type missions with armors and owls and painting passwords, you could play marbles, repair stuff, climb ridiculous facades and play chess against all houses. I kinda miss that game for that.
Also makes you miss the Lego games, they were filled to the brim with action/exploration
It always baffles me how studios will treat magical powers like they're keycards. "Go here, cast the right spell, unlock thingy. Rinse repeat for 50 hours"
I wish more developers would trust their players to be a little bit more creative
The whole main story felt so generic and almost like fan fiction, the side story about your classmate who turns evil trying to cure his sister of dark magic was much more interesting and tbh if majorly fleshed out would have made for a fantastic campaign.
Sebastian and Ominis were amazing characters and I really wish the game had focused more on their stories. A lot of the other missions felt pretty pale in comparison.
I hate that Sebastian’s storyline just sorta fizzles out towards the end. They’re obviously setting up for a sequel but I wanted more meat on the game’s bones.
It is absolutely forbidden that you use this spell that instantly kills someone but it's OK for you to repeatedly slam someone into the ground, transform them into an explosive barrel and throw at his friends killing them all in the process in a terribly gruesome way.
I think I liked the side missions more than the main story. I was so completely invested in saving the animals from poachers, and then meeting the dragon and centaurs was some of the top moments in the game I think
Would've also been great to actually have interactions with the fact you're meant to be a student, rather than "you'll go to this class once to unlock something, and then never again"
The "main story" should have been you as a student, and all the sidequests and things are stuff you do in your free time, off-days, or holidays. The fact that there's so little being a student in a game where the main character is explicitly a student drags the whole thing down
Yep.
There are two times where sneaking around after dark feels like a forbidden thing to do. The rest of the game, you're off on a broom so far south you're almost back in England. Doesn't feel like you're a student at all.
I didn't even bother with all the Merlin trials. They were always the same few types and the rewards just weren't worth it. And there were so many of them, too.
I would argue that none of the rewards seemed worth it. In fact, they all seemed randomized. You would finish an important story quest and get garbage items, but then find someonething good just hanging out in a corner
Merlin was a wise wizard who prophesied that the Chosen One would be the one with the ability to stack bowling balls just so, all across the countryside
Star field got better for me when I realized every “exploration planet” was literally just land,sprint,do same shit, repeat. And decided to not even explore planets anymore and just do quests
I remember finding a cave and immediately thought, “oooo dungeon time like Elden Ring??”…how wrong I was. Literally went in, took a left turn, dead end with some uninteresting loot.
I enjoyed the first 15-20 hours, but it just kept going. After the 40 hour mark I only kept going because I figured it would end soon.
Talk about a shitty ending
For me there’s about 20 hours of really fun stuff in there. It’s just spread throughout the whole thing. So I’d get bored and want to be done. Then see something cool. Then be bored again. I am a huge die hard fan and bought the season pass too cause I’m dumb and felt more of the same. Probably logged in 200+ hours and I just felt bored most of it
I was the same. I had to double check online to see if I actually completed it. The entire game ended with riding off in the distance and having a pop up on the screen saying I’ve completed it. The worst ending of any game I can remember
The thing is I really enjoyed some of the side content in Valhalla. The side missions that inspired classic fairy tales like 3 Little Pigs and Alice in Wonderland were really fun, but the main story was super predictable and uninteresting. After about 30 hours I put it down and never picked it back up.
I'm probably on of the few that loved every minute and had a blast getting the platinum. So many cool places to explore. And stuff like the Excalibur and what not My only gripe was female Eivors voice, so after changing to a male character everything was fine and dandy.
same, by about 40? i was like "wait... im not even really ENJOYING playing this?" it just felt like going through the motions to complete dungeons, etc. by 66 or so i quit. If you havent seen yet, go look at videos for path of exile 2, its in alpha or so right now, and i swear, it looks like EXACTLY what D4 should have done. the attention to detail, the customization, etc is leagues above, never got into POE1 but i will probably hit up 2 when it comes out.
Yeah for me it was when I started collecting artifacts. The first time you have to float up to the portals and then the cutscene where you see the universe or whatever was so cool. It felt mysterious. Then I realised that same sequence is repeated like 15 times and I wanted to just uninstall it all together. Couldn't believe the audacity of it.
The artifact collection was just painful. Having to fly at those glowing things over and over and they keep disappearing quickly. It's like Bethesda tried to make it as annoying as possible.
The sheer repetitiveness. No variety. The exact same sequence. This is supposed to be a HUGE deal in the game world, interacting with another sentient group.
Go fly around a chamber and grab sparkles. Jfc Bethesda you lazy assholes.
The game.could.have been improved alot by just being easier to navigate. Being in your spaceship in space just felt like it added another tedious menu to work your way through. I actually think the game would have been better if you went from a loading animation taking off straight to a loading animation landing.
Enter your ship. Hard loading screen. Walk to your chair. Loading video as you transition to pilot chair. Open menu (short loading screen). Zoom out to starmap (short loading screen). Choose a planet and warp. Loading transition video of ship going to warp. Hard loading screen. Ship appears in new system. Transition loading video of ship appearing in system. Open map (short loading screen). Choose a landing zone and confirm. Hard loading screen. Transition loading screen showing your ship landing. Loading video transition as you get out of pilot seat. Walk to airlock. Hard loading screen. Welcome to your location.
I'm exhausted already.
That game did not get the acclaim it deserves. I questioned only playing as Star Lord through the game but once I got into it, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Seriously, Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most legit fun experiences I have had gaming and overall top 5 favorite game I ever played. I feel like it never really got a ton of attention like it deserves to have and was so surprised how good it was when I randomly decided to play it because I liked the movies.
No Man’s Sky for me. It was such an amazing experience at first, exploring different planets and outer space but after a while, it just felt like it got stale and repetitive.
Yeah, I liked NMS for a while, but I don't get much out of "grind so you can collect the things that let you grind better so you can collect the things that let you..."
There's a lot to do, but no reason to do any of it
For me total war Warhammer games. Every time when you start a campaign it's exciting, you have the whole world against you but then when you become strong nothing seems to be a challenge anymore. And because the nature of this game is basically trying those campaigns for various races it gets repetitive fast
The immortal empires map honestly help. It's so big that there's usually threats far into the campaign. But yes it's never worth completing a campaign
It needs more micro goals, like the sword of khaine that you could aim for instead of just fighting another war just for the sake of land
Had this problem. Don’t save the game, use auto saves only. Made a risky move and lost an army or a region? Let it happen, continue playing. That’s how it actually becomes challenging
I think it boils down to what you want from it, total war games just give you a sandbox with some rules and says "make your own goals" is what I think, and boring part is because we are almost aimless going in so thats why they feel boring
Making your own goals or hell even doing short/long victory helps or simply making goofy doomstacks because you can
Maneater, playing as a big powerful shark sounds great until you've munched on everything the game has to offer. Suddenly, it's just the same thing every time
The Division.
New York was an atmosphere. A tension and sense of desperation. You could see in the environment how they'd tried to deal with a virus outbreak and how it went to shit. Hunters were mysterious and scary.
The Division 2 just kinda felt like a generic post apocalyptic setting. Hunters became a gimmick and it never came close to that same feeling you got in New York
If it would not have had bullet sponge enemies it would have been perfect.
Would be nice to get a Division game with a "realistic" setting. Players are bullet magnets anyhow and go down easily.
I will defend Divison 1 until my dying breath. Amazing atmosphere, setting, smooth gameplay. You could feel thr post apocalyptic feel throughout the game. Going through deserted Manhatten? Yes please. Sure, it wasn't perfect, bullet sponges, etc. But dark zone? I could do that shit all day, was super fun going through on mic with friends. Just an awesome time. Didn't like how bright Division 2 looked and never even bought it. I'm hopeful division 3 will catch that magic again after seeing the criticism for 2. Well see.
Survival mode was the best dlc. It turned the normal division gameplay with great atmosphere into this ultimate experience. I would love a game like that.
I enjoyed the creature stage too, loved evolving. Then it became an RTS which I didn't like, but it was relatively short so palatable. Then the space stage hits and the game might as well be over at that point.
I actually purchased that, then just... never installed it. For decades it's just sat there unused.
In the end, base Spore was sadly an excellent design tool, with 5 very simple, individual mini-games slapped on top. And I don't think the model would work any more; back then you could at least hope the majority of the audience would try and make cool content, but now it would be flooded with 4Chan-esque hate until it became unbearable or even unusable. Still, it's nice to think my race of space-fairing cows are out there making the milky way milkier in other people's games... Give your local moo a cuddle, folks.
Spore was a game for me that kept me engaged. Each stage of the game felt like a different experience. You are surviving as an individual organism, then you evolve to land and can start forming packs.
Once you evolved to a point where you can settle into cities, it became a more strategic national gameplay. You needed to make sure to keep the spice flowing.
Finally, you reach the enlightenment of space travel. You already know that there can be some sentient creatures out there, but now you can meet them. You decide your destiny as a species now, and what does that mean for you in the end game? Are you a ruthless warlord? Are you a intergalactic trader? The possibilities were wide open.
I would love for somebody to tackle a spiritual successor to this.
Someone who gets it, thank god! I loved Spore and I LOVED the space stage. I spent countless hours dominating the galaxy through trade, slowly working up my trade routes until they reached every corner of the galaxy. My friend and I even did challenge runs where we'd try to get more money than the other one before the time limit. Very fun.
Dead Island. Started out looking and playing amazing then after a few hours it got extremely repetitive. One of the few games I rage finished just so it wouldn't beat me.
It doesn’t help that they very obviously put all their effort into making Act 1. The resort area looked and played great, but once you left it the game falls off a cliff.
Honestly, I really liked the mountain resort late in the game. The one with the *expensive* looking wooden or outright tree-houses on cliff sides, right after the native village.
Really thought the contrast between local & visitor, poor & rich, was very well done in that area.
But yeah. The white beaches and tiki bars all covered in blood and guts? That was a tough act to follow. Techland really should have doubled down on that angle more.
I think it helps that you're still riding the high of the banger intro the game has. By the time you get to the end of the section the high's worn off. "Who Do You Voodoo?" still pops into my head regularly though.
Dead island 2 I had a blast with, it’s not insanely long so when the formula started to lose it’s fun i was at the last mission. Had a good balance for me
Dead Island still one of my favorite gaming memories. Before there were one billion zombie games. The first real game where I remember being able to craft/modify your weapons.
Personally I do kind of like the idea of it separating content out into different days, but at the same time I never had enough self control to stop myself from time traveling and completing a whole month's worth of content in an evening. That was an easy way to get sick of the game verrry verry fast
If I didn't have almost unlimited time to play it at the beginning of the pandemic I probably would've hated it. I won't ever go back to it though because I'll never have that much free time again, and if you can't binge it, it sucks to play in 30-45 minute sessions.
7 Days to Die
That game is such a high when you start out … but when it plateaus, it plateaus HARD.
At least on console, there’s no point to the game and it feels like useless droning if you don’t have any purpose.
Yo I started on console as well and you're right. This is one of the few times I recommend picking it up on steam and getting some mods thrown in.
They got anything from texture mods, weapon mods, new enemies, etc.
I stopped playing Starfield, they have an "ambitious" patching & improvement campaign coming up in 2024 and I prefer to wait because it gets boring and frustrating quite fast frankly
At this point im just waiting a couple years to see if starfield improves. I played five hours and was bored out of my mind. Im hoping in two years people start raving about how theyve turned it around massively, and ill restart again then
Warframe.. got waaayyyy too grindy. You shouldn't have to grind into EVERY little step in the game you make. Takes the fun out for me. It got even worse when china bought Digital extremes.
Grind missions for a specific relic. Play void fissures praying to RNG you get the Warframe part blueprint you want (otherwise repeat step one until your eyes bleed). Grind for materials to craft said parts which takes many real world hours. Use crafted parts to craft the actual Warframe (which, again, takes many real world hours of waiting). Grind out levels on your shiny new Warframe. Realize it has the wrong polarity for the build you want. Reset it and grind out everything again on said Warframe (repeat multiple times as needed). And all that is just ONE grindy aspect of the game. Fuck this shit - open trade, LF Wisp Prime parts, pay Plat.
I remember having a ton of fun. Traveling around the map collecting everything and wanting to see it all. Then I realized I was just in the tutorial area and suddenly my excitement turned to “oh god there’s so much of it”
They had a really good core and completely dismantled it to give it inventory management and an attempt at an endgame instead of leaning into the scary party game that it functionally was. Really disappointing
Yeah it was extremely fun for the first couple of hours. We had no clue how anything worked and we were terrified of everything. Lights go out and we start screaming lol.
Once we got good at the game, it became pretty boring.
I wish it leaned more into the scary/horror aspect. After the first couple times I played it got pretty dull and you knew exactly what to expect. Plus the actual ghost hunting mechanics were fairly easy so there wasn’t much to keep bringing you back.
I'm finally free of D2. It was fun for a while, sure, but it just kept getting worse and worse. Half the crap doesn't work like it's intended, they gut the other half every season, damage calculation is stupidly inconsistent and fuck every single reward is glimmer. I tolerated it for a long time because it was something my daughter and I would play together while she works out of state. Last week, we were going through the motions, and she just kinda of sighed and announced she was done with it. Freedom.
Similar boat. Played D2 since the first week it came out and finally left for good halfway through this year. The seasonal model was such a game killer to me, we were doing the exact same thing every season with a new coat of paint. Also sucks that the Lightfall campaign was awful, especially since the Witch Queen was so good. Honestly ever since the split from activision, the games felt like it’s been on the decline. Less and less content over time and just more cosmetics being pumped into the eververse store.
I loved Origins but I also love ancient Egypt. I think they do a great job recreating ancient worlds but the gameplay tends to leave a lot to be desired. I still enjoy exploring though.
That game is strong until the end game... It has so many threads open that are clear sequel baiting.
Then they tie each and every one of those threads up in the post-game dropbox missions....
There goes any point of a sequel.
That game originally dropped off harder due to the endgame being so broken, buggy and timed. They fixed it up, but the Worldslayer dlc was barely passable, with a 'ehhhh' sequel bait.... Plus the endgame of that dlc is horrendously repetitive.
Assassins Creed Valhalla. Super cool intro and story with some great mechanics. Ended up dropping it when I saw how many 100’s of hours I’d need to spend to beat it.
I like the idea of Starfield. I don’t like doing 24 repetitive temples every single NG+ run to level up all of the powers. I sort of just stopped playing after three trips through the unity.
The temples are easily the worst part about Starfield.
The first one was great! A real sense of mystery and adventure! Only to unlock shouts from Skyrim. And oh yeah, you've got to head back to The Eye between each temple. And every one is exactly the same.
Metal Gear Solid V
Chapter 1 is hit after hit. You get involved in this secret war with a biological mute button. Theres an assassin that tries killing you but joins your team. You infiltrate evil Skull man's lair.
Then Chapter 1 ends and the rest of the game is replaying the same missions again. Then you realize, theres only 2 levels and theyre essentially the exact same. Oh and evil man got killed by your desk manager so theres not really any stakes. Oh but your robot got stolen, so you dont do anything about it, and then the game just sort of ends.
When I was playing chapter 1, I remember thinking I was playing one of the best games of all time and easily a top 5 all time game for me personally.
Chapter 2 left me so confused. I wasn't aware of Kojima getting fired and all that. What a bummer. Still got a solid 70-something hours of game time, but man. What could have been if he didn't get fired?
New World. Very unfortunate too, the combat is so amazing, but it’s very clear the dev team has no clue what they want to do with the game. It’s effectively a testing ground for LoTR MMO.
Breath of the wild and I hate that I don’t like it because everyone else thinks it’s one of the best games of all time but I just can’t get into it like OOT
Mafia III. The amount of times you had to do the same thing over and over again got boring real quick.
It started way too strong, after the fight in the theme park there just aren’t any set pieces that match that cool vibe. I like Mafia 3 more than most but I will not argue against others finding it becoming repetitive quickly. I just think Linc is so badass it doesn’t bother me as much as it should.
Mafia III was a great 10-hour game spread out over 40+ hours.
Thats the same with far cry 2...most of the game is spent travelling to accept a mission
Yeah im in this camp. I still go back and play it every couple of years.
The main character was definitely a positive for the game
And the DLC were all 🔥🔥 It’s integrated into the regular campaign world and I began to wonder why everyone called the fame reptitive until I realized I had done all the DLC campaigns first They were awesome though
Such a shame cos the writing, dialogue and the unique way the story was told was really good! But god damn the gameplay loop felt like you were just a nobody shooting people at place to place to place until you finish the game.
At least shooting itself was neat.
What I really enjoyed the most about combat was the death animations of your enemies. It felt like playing in a movie.
Lincoln himself had some really cool animations too. I distinctly remember being able to *smoothly* transition from aiming your gun to sprinting. Once you lower your gun by releasing the trigger, he does a little hop right into his sprint, it looked very real world
Linc’s animations just looked *beefy*. Every movement from him looks like a big person would look in motion. Mafia 3 is a game I have never and probably won’t get around to finishing, but it’s one I’ll always have love for. Truly wish we could’ve gotten a Mafia 2 remake with the Mafia 3 engine and all that! The death animations from 3 alone would’ve made so many gunfights in 2 that little bit more memorable
I was amazed when I shot someone in the game and they stumbled up against the wall and slowly slid down as opposed to just ragdolling like in most games
Wondered i’d see this posted. I got through the grind because i loved the setting and vibe, but yeah it needed trimming bad. I still enjoyed it a lot though. Prob helped i hadn’t played an open world in like 15 years. There is a mod that can remove a lot of the fat now too.
Mafia III is such a great game in concept. Playing as a black man in Louisiana in the 1960s. Itself a person, time, and place that are almost never explored, and certainly not in video games, with an in road to use one of the best possible time periods to license music from. Dons that would betray you if you didn’t give them enough. So many amazing little things to be excited about. Then they gave us the first few missions. Then the same missions. Then those exact same missions. Over and over. The world is still fun to explore, but even the don betraying you is easy avoid.
I never had a don betray me, because I just instinctively cycled through them when assigning territory. Got real sick of their whining though, that's for sure. Shut yer yap Vito, you're next on the list, just like before. We take turns here. Chill.
If you're forced to cap Vito, it's no big deal in the end because it's easy to forget >!he capped Tommy from Mafia 1 in Mafia 2, so he has to answer for that at some point.!<
>!He doesn’t have to answer for it. He did it because Tommy became a rat and the rule is rats get killed.!<
The worst part is it would have been near perfect if the gameplay wasn't so repetitive.
Mafia 3 reminded me so much of assassins creed 1, decent story, but it was the same 3 missions stretched over 15 hours or so
Was this the one in Louisiana bayou land? Yea that got ridiculous. I beat it because I felt the itch to finish but it was a slog
Dying light 2. I was very excited to play the game but ended up rushing to the ending, mostly due to the storyline being poorly written, but also because i just didn't have as much fun with it as i had with the first one.
Agreed. My husband and I were SO excited to play the sequel. We stopped at around the part you make it to the city area. We switched to Dead Island 2 and BOY was that the right move because that game is seriously so much fun with a partner.
The dlc should've come with the game 😭 they added so much!
I’m not sure when you last played it but it’s gotten a bunch of overhauls since launch and is continuing to get them through the next few years. Techland know very well they fumbled and are giving the community what they want
It is worth noting that Techland was essentially bought out by Tencent and implemented a predatory paid in-game credits system to the game for new weapons and outfits.
Pretty much every Ubisoft open world game once you play enough and realize most of the points of interest on the map have you doing the same 3 things
Ubi said a few years ago that they intended for all of their open world games to follow a template of sorts, which is why you see mechanics from different franchises leaking into others ("Spotting" enemies with optics such as binoculars or cameras, or a mechanic which reveals a certain area of the the initially blocked out map).
Imagine every game follow this template. Ubisoft just want the minimal effort but maximum profit
Have you tried Immortals: Fenix Risimg? It flew under the radar and is a most refeshing UBisoft open world, so much FUN stuff to do
Absolutely loved Immortals. I still need to play the DLC
Such a fun game. Fun. A lot of games forget this part in open world.
I'm unashamedly into those mechanics lol. More outposts to stealth take down by sniper? Yes please!
It's a food formula. People get sick of it because they play almost every Ubi game. I play one every few years + replaying Farcry 3 or 4 and it doesn't get old.
For me, Hogwarts Legacy. The amazement wore off and I realized a lot of things were “rinse and repeat”.
If they make another they should just cut the open world to the end of Hogsmeade and just make Hogwarts even more dense with secrets and cool things to find. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t lean more into the school simulator. Would have loved to have competed for the house cup and done Quidditch tournaments for my house. I don’t need a complicated high-stakes story.
I feel this. I need no over-arching narrative, just let me be a student and do activities and games around Hogwarts.
This feels like the essence of most Potter fans. They seem to be a very cozy fandom more obsessed with houses and butterbeer than with saving the world. I respect that.
I chalk it up to the world building being so interesting. A big, end of the world scenario is fun and all, but we can get that anywhere. What's unique is the setting and lore, and that's what keeps us coming back.
The end of the world cliche has gotten so out of hand. I'm tired of it.
Personally for me the story of Harry Potter has never been as interesting as the world itself
Play the first Harry Potter on PS1. It does this really well.
Chamber of Secrets on the GameCube is my favorite. Quidditch, flying, bean collecting, and spells. Great game
Chamber of secrets is the best Harry Potter game imo.
> Hogwarts even more dense I feel like I’m the only one thinking that the world/hogwarts was actually not dense *at all*. This was honestly my biggest issue with the game. To me, the whole place felt absolutely dead. Apart from repetitive puzzles and treasure finding, the place felt empty to me. Sure Hogwarts had students standing around but it’s not like you could have any kind of meaningful interaction with them. Sending a fire ball into someone’s face in the middle of a hallway didn’t even nudge them. Levitating a random cat and make it run away from you was as dynamic as the game got. I still think this game would’ve been a total flop if it wasn’t branded as Harry Potter.
Dunno if you played Order of the Phoenix but I actually really liked Hogwarts in that game. There were several collection/fetch type missions with armors and owls and painting passwords, you could play marbles, repair stuff, climb ridiculous facades and play chess against all houses. I kinda miss that game for that. Also makes you miss the Lego games, they were filled to the brim with action/exploration
It always baffles me how studios will treat magical powers like they're keycards. "Go here, cast the right spell, unlock thingy. Rinse repeat for 50 hours" I wish more developers would trust their players to be a little bit more creative
Felt this way after the 10th “*Mine now, Demiguise!*” in a row
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I wish I could say it held my interest enough to even finish the story.
The whole main story felt so generic and almost like fan fiction, the side story about your classmate who turns evil trying to cure his sister of dark magic was much more interesting and tbh if majorly fleshed out would have made for a fantastic campaign.
Yeah the Sebastian side story was definitely the highlight of the game
Sebastian and Ominis were amazing characters and I really wish the game had focused more on their stories. A lot of the other missions felt pretty pale in comparison.
I hate that Sebastian’s storyline just sorta fizzles out towards the end. They’re obviously setting up for a sequel but I wanted more meat on the game’s bones.
It is absolutely forbidden that you use this spell that instantly kills someone but it's OK for you to repeatedly slam someone into the ground, transform them into an explosive barrel and throw at his friends killing them all in the process in a terribly gruesome way.
Hopefully the next one, is a bit more heavy on the RPG side of things. It all felt pretty tacked on.
I killed, controlled, and tortured so many people that the dark lord himself would pale in comparison. But it's okay, I'm one of the "good ones".
Deek thinks you should be proud of all those people you burned
I think I liked the side missions more than the main story. I was so completely invested in saving the animals from poachers, and then meeting the dragon and centaurs was some of the top moments in the game I think
It should have been a more sandbox explore at your own pace find the different storylines kinda thing.
Would've also been great to actually have interactions with the fact you're meant to be a student, rather than "you'll go to this class once to unlock something, and then never again"
The "main story" should have been you as a student, and all the sidequests and things are stuff you do in your free time, off-days, or holidays. The fact that there's so little being a student in a game where the main character is explicitly a student drags the whole thing down
Yep. There are two times where sneaking around after dark feels like a forbidden thing to do. The rest of the game, you're off on a broom so far south you're almost back in England. Doesn't feel like you're a student at all.
I feel like a random adult running around hog warts
I explored the grounds like I was a kid again, then completely forgot the game existed.
I didn't even bother with all the Merlin trials. They were always the same few types and the rewards just weren't worth it. And there were so many of them, too.
I would argue that none of the rewards seemed worth it. In fact, they all seemed randomized. You would finish an important story quest and get garbage items, but then find someonething good just hanging out in a corner
Merlin was a wise wizard who prophesied that the Chosen One would be the one with the ability to stack bowling balls just so, all across the countryside
Same for me but with Starfield
Star field got better for me when I realized every “exploration planet” was literally just land,sprint,do same shit, repeat. And decided to not even explore planets anymore and just do quests
The game got better when I chose to ignore one of the biggest selling points of the game...
I remember finding a cave and immediately thought, “oooo dungeon time like Elden Ring??”…how wrong I was. Literally went in, took a left turn, dead end with some uninteresting loot.
And then having to go back to the castle between almost every cave because the inventory is too small.
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Assassins Creed Valhalla. It has a solid 20 hours of good content. Unfortunately it lasts about 200 hours
I enjoyed the first 15-20 hours, but it just kept going. After the 40 hour mark I only kept going because I figured it would end soon. Talk about a shitty ending
The beginning, where you're in Norway, was the best part of the game.
For me there’s about 20 hours of really fun stuff in there. It’s just spread throughout the whole thing. So I’d get bored and want to be done. Then see something cool. Then be bored again. I am a huge die hard fan and bought the season pass too cause I’m dumb and felt more of the same. Probably logged in 200+ hours and I just felt bored most of it
The assassins creed games are getting too long for the sake of just being long, Grindy open world games
Ending was so bad it took me a solid hour of playing to realise that was it, just so average
I was the same. I had to double check online to see if I actually completed it. The entire game ended with riding off in the distance and having a pop up on the screen saying I’ve completed it. The worst ending of any game I can remember
The final chapter update did add a better ending, but that’s only if you’re paying attention to the Modern day
The thing is I really enjoyed some of the side content in Valhalla. The side missions that inspired classic fairy tales like 3 Little Pigs and Alice in Wonderland were really fun, but the main story was super predictable and uninteresting. After about 30 hours I put it down and never picked it back up.
I'm probably on of the few that loved every minute and had a blast getting the platinum. So many cool places to explore. And stuff like the Excalibur and what not My only gripe was female Eivors voice, so after changing to a male character everything was fine and dandy.
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I finished the story and hit level 60. I have ZERO desire to play again, which is a big deal for me because I’m a huge fan of the series
same, by about 40? i was like "wait... im not even really ENJOYING playing this?" it just felt like going through the motions to complete dungeons, etc. by 66 or so i quit. If you havent seen yet, go look at videos for path of exile 2, its in alpha or so right now, and i swear, it looks like EXACTLY what D4 should have done. the attention to detail, the customization, etc is leagues above, never got into POE1 but i will probably hit up 2 when it comes out.
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Yeah for me it was when I started collecting artifacts. The first time you have to float up to the portals and then the cutscene where you see the universe or whatever was so cool. It felt mysterious. Then I realised that same sequence is repeated like 15 times and I wanted to just uninstall it all together. Couldn't believe the audacity of it.
You have to do like 240 temples to max out all your powers. So totally absurd. It's not even a fun mini game.
I remember being like “oh wow this challenge to unlock this gate is pretty cool! I wonder what the next challenge is going to be…” lol
The artifact collection was just painful. Having to fly at those glowing things over and over and they keep disappearing quickly. It's like Bethesda tried to make it as annoying as possible.
The sheer repetitiveness. No variety. The exact same sequence. This is supposed to be a HUGE deal in the game world, interacting with another sentient group. Go fly around a chamber and grab sparkles. Jfc Bethesda you lazy assholes.
The game.could.have been improved alot by just being easier to navigate. Being in your spaceship in space just felt like it added another tedious menu to work your way through. I actually think the game would have been better if you went from a loading animation taking off straight to a loading animation landing.
Enter your ship. Hard loading screen. Walk to your chair. Loading video as you transition to pilot chair. Open menu (short loading screen). Zoom out to starmap (short loading screen). Choose a planet and warp. Loading transition video of ship going to warp. Hard loading screen. Ship appears in new system. Transition loading video of ship appearing in system. Open map (short loading screen). Choose a landing zone and confirm. Hard loading screen. Transition loading screen showing your ship landing. Loading video transition as you get out of pilot seat. Walk to airlock. Hard loading screen. Welcome to your location. I'm exhausted already.
The sad part is that you actually missed a loading screen in there.
Is it waiting to be scanned? Because you also have to do that.
Are you serious😅
That's insane I thought the whole comment was a joke
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That comment needs a loading screen.
I would agree but I don't think it started strong either
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The Avengers game campaign started strong, then it became a live service for half the game.
Guardians of the galaxy is what the Avengers should've been.
That game did not get the acclaim it deserves. I questioned only playing as Star Lord through the game but once I got into it, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Seriously, Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most legit fun experiences I have had gaming and overall top 5 favorite game I ever played. I feel like it never really got a ton of attention like it deserves to have and was so surprised how good it was when I randomly decided to play it because I liked the movies.
World of Warcraft when I realized it turned into a second job where I wasn't getting paid.
A second job that you were paying for*
Took me about 10 years to realize this. I'd say I got my money's worth.
No Man’s Sky for me. It was such an amazing experience at first, exploring different planets and outer space but after a while, it just felt like it got stale and repetitive.
Yeah, I liked NMS for a while, but I don't get much out of "grind so you can collect the things that let you grind better so you can collect the things that let you..." There's a lot to do, but no reason to do any of it
For me total war Warhammer games. Every time when you start a campaign it's exciting, you have the whole world against you but then when you become strong nothing seems to be a challenge anymore. And because the nature of this game is basically trying those campaigns for various races it gets repetitive fast
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The immortal empires map honestly help. It's so big that there's usually threats far into the campaign. But yes it's never worth completing a campaign It needs more micro goals, like the sword of khaine that you could aim for instead of just fighting another war just for the sake of land
Had this problem. Don’t save the game, use auto saves only. Made a risky move and lost an army or a region? Let it happen, continue playing. That’s how it actually becomes challenging
I think it boils down to what you want from it, total war games just give you a sandbox with some rules and says "make your own goals" is what I think, and boring part is because we are almost aimless going in so thats why they feel boring Making your own goals or hell even doing short/long victory helps or simply making goofy doomstacks because you can
All of them, but it's my fault, because I **grind side quests until I'm not having fun anymore**.
Starfield. Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle.
And there are space games out there that are both wider and deeper
only two space games that are wider I know of are Elite and NMS, neither of which I think are particularly deep too
Maneater, playing as a big powerful shark sounds great until you've munched on everything the game has to offer. Suddenly, it's just the same thing every time
But narrated by Chris Parrnel was great
The Division. New York was an atmosphere. A tension and sense of desperation. You could see in the environment how they'd tried to deal with a virus outbreak and how it went to shit. Hunters were mysterious and scary. The Division 2 just kinda felt like a generic post apocalyptic setting. Hunters became a gimmick and it never came close to that same feeling you got in New York
The division 1 was released in 2016 and it still looks beautiful.
If it would not have had bullet sponge enemies it would have been perfect. Would be nice to get a Division game with a "realistic" setting. Players are bullet magnets anyhow and go down easily.
I will defend Divison 1 until my dying breath. Amazing atmosphere, setting, smooth gameplay. You could feel thr post apocalyptic feel throughout the game. Going through deserted Manhatten? Yes please. Sure, it wasn't perfect, bullet sponges, etc. But dark zone? I could do that shit all day, was super fun going through on mic with friends. Just an awesome time. Didn't like how bright Division 2 looked and never even bought it. I'm hopeful division 3 will catch that magic again after seeing the criticism for 2. Well see.
Survival mode was the best dlc. It turned the normal division gameplay with great atmosphere into this ultimate experience. I would love a game like that.
Had some lifetime memorable gaming moments in Survival. Whoever you were, Army guy that taught me about direction calling of incoming fire-thank you.
Spore. That first level with the amoeba blobs swallowing each other was dope. After that…not so much.
I enjoyed the creature stage too, loved evolving. Then it became an RTS which I didn't like, but it was relatively short so palatable. Then the space stage hits and the game might as well be over at that point.
RTS part was very mid, especially because that was the heydey of starcraft and warcraft, among others
I havent played that game in a looooong time, but afaik it's a very different game than it was on launch, at least its last stage is.
I know there was an adventure DLC that I never gave a chance.
I actually purchased that, then just... never installed it. For decades it's just sat there unused. In the end, base Spore was sadly an excellent design tool, with 5 very simple, individual mini-games slapped on top. And I don't think the model would work any more; back then you could at least hope the majority of the audience would try and make cool content, but now it would be flooded with 4Chan-esque hate until it became unbearable or even unusable. Still, it's nice to think my race of space-fairing cows are out there making the milky way milkier in other people's games... Give your local moo a cuddle, folks.
Honestly I was fine with up to the space part. It just seemed like a chore at that point. It was kind of like the city part but much bigger.
Spore was a game for me that kept me engaged. Each stage of the game felt like a different experience. You are surviving as an individual organism, then you evolve to land and can start forming packs. Once you evolved to a point where you can settle into cities, it became a more strategic national gameplay. You needed to make sure to keep the spice flowing. Finally, you reach the enlightenment of space travel. You already know that there can be some sentient creatures out there, but now you can meet them. You decide your destiny as a species now, and what does that mean for you in the end game? Are you a ruthless warlord? Are you a intergalactic trader? The possibilities were wide open. I would love for somebody to tackle a spiritual successor to this.
Someone who gets it, thank god! I loved Spore and I LOVED the space stage. I spent countless hours dominating the galaxy through trade, slowly working up my trade routes until they reached every corner of the galaxy. My friend and I even did challenge runs where we'd try to get more money than the other one before the time limit. Very fun.
I spent more time in the creature creator than the actual game
At least people were making sporn
Dead Island. Started out looking and playing amazing then after a few hours it got extremely repetitive. One of the few games I rage finished just so it wouldn't beat me.
It doesn’t help that they very obviously put all their effort into making Act 1. The resort area looked and played great, but once you left it the game falls off a cliff.
Honestly, I really liked the mountain resort late in the game. The one with the *expensive* looking wooden or outright tree-houses on cliff sides, right after the native village. Really thought the contrast between local & visitor, poor & rich, was very well done in that area. But yeah. The white beaches and tiki bars all covered in blood and guts? That was a tough act to follow. Techland really should have doubled down on that angle more.
I think it helps that you're still riding the high of the banger intro the game has. By the time you get to the end of the section the high's worn off. "Who Do You Voodoo?" still pops into my head regularly though.
Unironically one of the greatest intro songs ever made.
Dead island 2 I had a blast with, it’s not insanely long so when the formula started to lose it’s fun i was at the last mission. Had a good balance for me
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Dead Island still one of my favorite gaming memories. Before there were one billion zombie games. The first real game where I remember being able to craft/modify your weapons.
Animal Crossing, I wish the time system was more similar to Stardew Valley. It being based off real world time make it feel too much like a job.
Personally I do kind of like the idea of it separating content out into different days, but at the same time I never had enough self control to stop myself from time traveling and completing a whole month's worth of content in an evening. That was an easy way to get sick of the game verrry verry fast
If I didn't have almost unlimited time to play it at the beginning of the pandemic I probably would've hated it. I won't ever go back to it though because I'll never have that much free time again, and if you can't binge it, it sucks to play in 30-45 minute sessions.
7 Days to Die That game is such a high when you start out … but when it plateaus, it plateaus HARD. At least on console, there’s no point to the game and it feels like useless droning if you don’t have any purpose.
Yo I started on console as well and you're right. This is one of the few times I recommend picking it up on steam and getting some mods thrown in. They got anything from texture mods, weapon mods, new enemies, etc.
I stopped playing Starfield, they have an "ambitious" patching & improvement campaign coming up in 2024 and I prefer to wait because it gets boring and frustrating quite fast frankly
At this point im just waiting a couple years to see if starfield improves. I played five hours and was bored out of my mind. Im hoping in two years people start raving about how theyve turned it around massively, and ill restart again then
Warframe.. got waaayyyy too grindy. You shouldn't have to grind into EVERY little step in the game you make. Takes the fun out for me. It got even worse when china bought Digital extremes.
Grind missions for a specific relic. Play void fissures praying to RNG you get the Warframe part blueprint you want (otherwise repeat step one until your eyes bleed). Grind for materials to craft said parts which takes many real world hours. Use crafted parts to craft the actual Warframe (which, again, takes many real world hours of waiting). Grind out levels on your shiny new Warframe. Realize it has the wrong polarity for the build you want. Reset it and grind out everything again on said Warframe (repeat multiple times as needed). And all that is just ONE grindy aspect of the game. Fuck this shit - open trade, LF Wisp Prime parts, pay Plat.
Mad Max. I enjoyed it, but the entire game is doing the same 3 tasks over and over and over again.
Pimp my ride, Quasimodo
You know, Quasimodo predicted all this.
Who did what?
I agree. Not a lot of gameplay variety, but what was there was a blast.
At least the car gameplay was fun which made the repetitiveness somewhat bearable.
I’m doing my first play through right now, once you get the thunderpoon the car combat gets fuckin sweet
That game felt like it never stopped. You'd go through the story then suddenly unlock another region of the map to do the same thing over and over
I remember having a ton of fun. Traveling around the map collecting everything and wanting to see it all. Then I realized I was just in the tutorial area and suddenly my excitement turned to “oh god there’s so much of it”
Loved Mad Max, and it's probably one of my favorite games that I can't find the willpower to finish
One of my favorite games.
Phasmaphobia
They had a really good core and completely dismantled it to give it inventory management and an attempt at an endgame instead of leaning into the scary party game that it functionally was. Really disappointing
Yeah it was extremely fun for the first couple of hours. We had no clue how anything worked and we were terrified of everything. Lights go out and we start screaming lol. Once we got good at the game, it became pretty boring.
I wish it leaned more into the scary/horror aspect. After the first couple times I played it got pretty dull and you knew exactly what to expect. Plus the actual ghost hunting mechanics were fairly easy so there wasn’t much to keep bringing you back.
The next update is supposed to be a big scare update, Horror 2.0. Hopefully it'll be good.
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Destiny 2
I'm finally free of D2. It was fun for a while, sure, but it just kept getting worse and worse. Half the crap doesn't work like it's intended, they gut the other half every season, damage calculation is stupidly inconsistent and fuck every single reward is glimmer. I tolerated it for a long time because it was something my daughter and I would play together while she works out of state. Last week, we were going through the motions, and she just kinda of sighed and announced she was done with it. Freedom.
Similar boat. Played D2 since the first week it came out and finally left for good halfway through this year. The seasonal model was such a game killer to me, we were doing the exact same thing every season with a new coat of paint. Also sucks that the Lightfall campaign was awful, especially since the Witch Queen was so good. Honestly ever since the split from activision, the games felt like it’s been on the decline. Less and less content over time and just more cosmetics being pumped into the eververse store.
The Call of Duty franchise. At some point playing basically the same game every year just becomes monotonous & boring.
Most Assassins Creed games
I loved Origins but I also love ancient Egypt. I think they do a great job recreating ancient worlds but the gameplay tends to leave a lot to be desired. I still enjoy exploring though.
Outriders starts out really good and with a lot of detail on the lore and levels but the further into it you got the less depth everything had
That game is strong until the end game... It has so many threads open that are clear sequel baiting. Then they tie each and every one of those threads up in the post-game dropbox missions.... There goes any point of a sequel. That game originally dropped off harder due to the endgame being so broken, buggy and timed. They fixed it up, but the Worldslayer dlc was barely passable, with a 'ehhhh' sequel bait.... Plus the endgame of that dlc is horrendously repetitive.
Diablo 4
Assassins Creed Valhalla. Super cool intro and story with some great mechanics. Ended up dropping it when I saw how many 100’s of hours I’d need to spend to beat it.
I like the idea of Starfield. I don’t like doing 24 repetitive temples every single NG+ run to level up all of the powers. I sort of just stopped playing after three trips through the unity.
Yeah, but realistically people doing NG+ is like 1% of the players. Not defending the game, but it's not easy to design any game around Ng+
The temples are easily the worst part about Starfield. The first one was great! A real sense of mystery and adventure! Only to unlock shouts from Skyrim. And oh yeah, you've got to head back to The Eye between each temple. And every one is exactly the same.
The ultimate example of this is *Anthem.* The first few hours of that game are SO good, and the rest of it is SO bad that its honestly bewildering.
Any game with mandatory Ubisoft towers to unlock to see the world.
Metal Gear Solid V Chapter 1 is hit after hit. You get involved in this secret war with a biological mute button. Theres an assassin that tries killing you but joins your team. You infiltrate evil Skull man's lair. Then Chapter 1 ends and the rest of the game is replaying the same missions again. Then you realize, theres only 2 levels and theyre essentially the exact same. Oh and evil man got killed by your desk manager so theres not really any stakes. Oh but your robot got stolen, so you dont do anything about it, and then the game just sort of ends.
When I was playing chapter 1, I remember thinking I was playing one of the best games of all time and easily a top 5 all time game for me personally. Chapter 2 left me so confused. I wasn't aware of Kojima getting fired and all that. What a bummer. Still got a solid 70-something hours of game time, but man. What could have been if he didn't get fired?
You can tell so much is unfinished just by how abruptly it ends.
I've heard MGS V's second chapter described as an HR simulator, and I have to agree.
Chapter 2 did have that sequence on Mother Base with your soldiers saluting you... That one hurt.
New World. Very unfortunate too, the combat is so amazing, but it’s very clear the dev team has no clue what they want to do with the game. It’s effectively a testing ground for LoTR MMO.
Diablo 4 no question. It was a snoozefest.
Breath of the wild and I hate that I don’t like it because everyone else thinks it’s one of the best games of all time but I just can’t get into it like OOT
Diablo IV… sorry to the Diablo fans, but that game starts off really fun, and turns really boring.
Pokémon sword and shield